My knee replacement is one week away and I’m scurrying around getting the medications and equipment that will keep me sane and functional in the weeks and months that follow. I try to keep some perspective about these surgeries being just a couple of pages in a chapter in a book about my life, but these pages seem to loom and dance, doing funny things to my personal sense of perspective. Time rushes by and then just sits there, stale and nasty, like a pile of garbage, this week-span of anticipation taking forever and being right on top of me, all at the same time.
In a crisis, how do I deal with weight management? Well, my scrupulous attention to health and fitness takes a back seat to emotion-management, that is for certain. For example, I had a bowl of ice cream after dinner last night and a brownie earlier in the day, two acts that would not have been unheard-of in my previous life, but certainly rare. We have treats, but on special occasion. I guess this is just such an occasion. So, there’s the appearance of desserts on the menu. What else? My activity level is much less as I settle in to my body, temporarily disabled, first by arthritis, second by surgeries.
What can we take away from this particular lesson? First, life requires flexibility. None of us is going to be able to consistently apply every principle of healthy living every page of our lives. Some of life’s pages require special consideration. Giving ourselves permission to ride out a crisis does not have to mean a permanent lifestyle of daily dessert-eating and lying around on the couch like a chubby seal. But these behaviors may be just the ticket in the moment. Second, time does funny things in a crisis, elongating and truncating, changing our perspective. Why not take this opportunity to tune into what the body and mind need in the moment? This knowledge will serve us well when the crisis is over, helping us to sort needs from wants and momentary impulses from our true goals.
Stop Losing and Win 